class notes
Births
Tina Shook (A/S ’00) and her husband, Ryan Ruffing, Attica, Ohio, welcomed their daughter Ellery Mae in March 2010. Dawn Zientaek MD (MED ’00) and Will Collier MD (MED ’00), Delaware, Ohio, celebrated the birth of their second child Paxton John in December. Kyle Gee (Law ’08) and his wife Kristen welcomed the birth of daughter Mazie Ruth in January. She joins big sister Brooklyn and the family in York, Pa.
Kate J. (Jennings) Wilks MD (MED ’08) and her husband Joseph welcomed Isaac David to their Morgantown, W.V., family in November.
46
Toledo Alumni Magazine | Spring 2011
A well-furnished life If attorney Joe Rosa (Eng ’82) says he’s bringing his skills to the table, he may well mean the table itself. The corporatelawyer-turned-privatepractitioner in Kansas City, Mo., owns a sideline business in studio furniture, one example of which appears in this photo. “Furniture was a hobby for years,” says the former managing attorney for Kansas City Power & Light. Several things propelled his pastime into production: years serving on the board of the Arts Incubator of Kansas City, an in-depth entrepreneurship program he took at the KC-based Kauffman Foundation, and the timing. “At the same time I was making my decision to leave corporate practice, I was finishing up my military career,” says Rosa, who had a long stint with the U.S Air Force Reserves that included service in Iraq. “The idea was to have more time for family.” The reality has been less than leisurely, he says, between his legal practice and the furniture business. “One thing I’ve learned is that sometimes the business of art swallows up the art. But that’s true for running a legal practice as well! And there’s my teenage son, who’s had a landscaping business since he was twelve, set up as a limited-liability company. I help with that, too.” In short, never a dull moment, he concludes. “I may have extra time now since retiring from the military, but it’ll easily be filled with law or furniture — or something else I don’t know about yet.”
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